Top Shelf Marketing

How often do I need to post on social media?

I get that question a lot – and my answer is probably not as straightforward as you’d like. The good news is: a lot of people have already documented best practices for this subject. There's no need for me to reinvent the wheel when it comes to social media frequency statistics, but I will provide you with a few choice resources to help you make decisions:

It's critical to note – and you'll see this in the articles above – that the need for social media posting varies from platform to platform. But what you won't see is that it's also different for every business. It’s on you, the business owner, to test and measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts.

Oh man, that sounds daunting, doesn’t it?

Here’s the good news: I’ve created a clear and concise guide to help launch your social media program. The guide outlines a few simple steps to get your social media program rolling so you don’t have to start from scratch. And – BONUS – there's a simple guide to testing and measuring included with the guide. For the record, this guide isn't exhaustive. There are a ton of things you CAN do to get your social media strategy up and running. The guide is meant to be a simple plan that might work for your business. ​

HOT TIP: Remember, perfect is the enemy of good. And something is better than nothing.

​(The following steps assume that you know your customer well. If you don’t, start with creating personas.)

Step 1: Start Somewhere with Social Media

​Pick three platforms to experiment with. I recommend people start with the big three because they get the most traffic and have the most robust tools:

Twitter - 140 character messages combined with hashtags to create community share information and have conversations

Facebook - The gorilla. Where friends and family share text and pictures. You can have a business page, but it’ll be tricky to get organic traffic here. The good news is that it’s pretty inexpensive to try out their advertising features and target your audience.

LinkedIn - A business-focused platform that has some targeting and some advertising. You should have a page here too, even if you don’t post. It helps you look legit.

Those might not be the right three for you, but it’s a starting point. Or pick your own starting point and if you need help with that, here is an article dictating the 60+ most important social media platforms in 2017 from Make A Website Hub. Whatever platforms you choose, ensure that your market is actually on those platforms.

Step 2: Create a Rough Social Media Calendar

Pick quarterly, monthly and weekly themes that you want to highlight on a regular cadence. As an example, let’s say you’re selling ice cream. Here’s a sample social media calendar: ​

HOT TIP:Do some research on twitter about which hashtags are lively and applicable (here's a resource) and make a list that you can use when you…

Step 3: Make the Social Media Content

​Your social media should point to something. In a perfect world, that “something” should be on your website, so whatever you do in social media drives people back to you. That said, there are numerous types of posts that will help benefit and build your brand! Here are some ideas you can use to generate your own assets, and some to help curate content that is complementary to your business:

Articles/Helpful Content from Your Website – Pull quotes, helpful hints, and tips from the articles that live on your website.

Your Product Pages – In the ice cream example above, it’s likely that each of the posts are driving people to a brick and mortar location. If your business has a storefront or other physical presence, send your audience to an online store where they can buy gift certificates or other discounts. An online purchase will act as investment that encourages them to visit you in real life. If you’re selling products online only, use customer reviews, bestseller statistics, and fun facts about your products to pique interest and inspire confidence.

Inspirational Quotes – Is there something inspirational, silly, fun or helpful that you can turn into an image that will appeal to your market? Share it! No link back required. This is share-able content at its best.

Curated Articles – Is there a non-competitive and reputable blog or magazine that writes articles or shares information that helps support the mission of your business? Grab a quote that is meaningful and link to that article.

Videos – Interviews, company updates, client testimonials, funny stuff that applies to your brand…These are all great content options, since people’s consumption of video is on the rise. 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. (Insivia).

Lay your content out in a spreadsheet that notes the platform, week it’s scheduled for, the hashtags you’ll be using (where applicable) and the link you’ll refer to.

HOT TIP: Don’t use your social media channels only for selling – your audience will catch on and tune out quickly. Shoot for 10% selling and 90% providing value through relevant information and meaningful interactions.

How many social media updates do I need to do?

​I bet you’re still asking yourself “OK, but how many social updates do I need to do a day?” The answer is: it depends. For some of my professional services clients, we schedule five tweets a day, three LinkedIn updates a week, two Facebook posts a week and one Google Plus post a week. We pull that content from three individual links that live on the client's website and reliable resources that offer articles that complement their products and services. We created that plan based on a combination of best practices (see the resources I posted at the beginning) and testing.

Step 4: Make Social Media Images

Statistics show that using images in social media exponentially increases engagement, so you’re going to need an image for every post you create. Sometimes images auto populate, but they’re not always proportioned correctly for the platform – and they may not represent your message as well as images selected and cropped by you. Not to worry, this is easier than it seems! You need three things to win here:

​1200x1200 Source images. This is the maximum width for most social image platforms. Make sure that the most important part of the image (product, messaging, your company name, etc.) is in the center so as you crop, you’re able to keep the most important stuff in front of the customer. Free image editors include: picmonkey.com, pixlr.com, Adobe Photoshop Express Editor. See a more complete list of image editing options for you here.

A way to quickly optimize photos for each platform. I live and breathe by one amazing, “magic bullet” tool for optimizing photos across platforms: Sprout Social’s Landscape tool. It allows you to upload your photo into their cropping machine, choose the platforms you prefer, automates the cropping process (while giving you a chance to fine tune it) and then spits it all out in a handy zip file. No tricks, no hassle. It’s free and awesome. ​

HOT TIP: Find a themed look and feel to your images so it’s clear they’re from the same company. Maybe you do that through a filter or a type of photo you choose. No matter what option you pick here, be consistent.

Step 5: Schedule Your Social Media Content

​Wondering how often to post? Refer to the links at the beginning of the post. But let’s talk about how to schedule your social media content. The first step in this process is to figure out the best way to get your content online.

Native Scheduling Vs. Scheduling via Third Party Tools

Some people swear by posting on the native platforms (that means the platforms that the post will end up on, like posting Facebook updates through Facebook, LinkedIn through LinkedIn, etc.) because there’s a myth that platforms punish people who post through third party applications. Some people love the convenience of posting to multiple platforms from a tool like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer and those types of tools. Really the choice is yours; your decision will likely be dictated by budget and resources.

As I mentioned, there’s a myth that using third party tools are punished by platforms and their posts are deprioritized, but that’s not my experience. For me it’s about ease and I prefer to post from a third party tool so I can keep the scheduling straight for all of the different platforms in one spot. Gain agrees with me, but they’re also a third party tool, so take that with a grain of salt.

HOT TIP: Schedule your posts at imperfect times like 1:22 or 6:31 to make it seem just a little less ​“schedule-y”.

​HOT TIP #2:Post at the same type of content at the time every day to ensure you get a good set of sample data. (This will help you with Step #6.)

Step 6: Measure and Adjust

Get started by posting regularly for 6-8 weeks, to get a baseline of how your social media efforts are landing. That baseline will tell us what works within those parameters.

After you’ve got 6-8 weeks of data, get a piece of paper or a whiteboard or a giant sticky note where you can document your important learnings. This will turn into a best practices list for your specific business.
​On your paper/ white board/ giant sticky, note identify the following:

What are the highest and lowest performing times? (engagement and clickthroughs)

What are the highest and lowest performing content types? (engagement and clickthroughs)

What trends are you seeing? Maybe you’re seeing that your audience engages with a particular topic? Or perhaps they love videos. Whatever the situation is, be on the lookout for hints and indicators about your audience is looking for.

Making Adjustments

Ok, now you’ve written down some important information and we need to make it work for you.

For low performing content: try a different time slot

For low performing times: try different content

​Track your learnings and keep experimenting with times and dates and content types to find out what works best for you!

HOT TIP: Make one change at a time so you can clearly track what’s working and what’s not.

​Good news! You won’t regret creating a consistent social media schedule. The benefits extend from branding, customer service, advertising, lead generation, and HR to content promotion, marketing, research and development, competitive analysis and SEO. In fact, Sprout Social released a HUGE guide on the benefits of social media recently that you might find helpful.

What's Next?

If you’re interested in getting more information like, this, you might want to subscribe to my blog.